FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi Everyone,

I have grown three drosera species from seeds (Drosera Capillaris, Drosera Burmannii, Drosera Spatulata) using the Ziploc bag technique and have removed the bags once the seedlings were noticeably sized (they are in pots immersed in water trays and being supplemented by a compact fluorescent bulb on a timer), but they haven't actually changed at all in probably about 3 months--they haven't really grown bigger or anything, and the plants are only maybe 1 mm in size at most. Is this normal, or are the plants just dead? How long do they take to grow? I've read that you can feed them to help the process, but these seedlings are so tiny that I doubt they are capable of digesting anything at their current size. What do I do?

for me, you have to feed something to get them started. you should be fine if you give them lots of sun, but practically no one has that much. you can use a thin wire to move pieces of food to the traps. you can experiment with folar feeding but that's kinda risky in my opinion if you don't know what you're doing.

I agree you do need to feed them You can use a dilute MaxSea spray, or put a droplet of dilute MaxSea on each leaf, or use needle-tip tweezers or a toothpick to feed bloodworm or nutritional yeast. I also use a loupe (hand magnifier). Check out: http://www.growsundews.com/sundews/Germ ... _Seedlings

Ok, so nutritional yeast...do you mean like the yeast you use for baking bread??

I've foliar fed sprouts before. I did it a little more carefully though and applied it with a small paintbrush dipped with some maxsea. It works but it definitely burns some of the smaller leaves. So when I do it I aim for a leaf I think will be terminated next, usually the smallest or lowest. I'm kind of in the same boat. I have two pots of bainkloof seeds in the same conditions. One pot is growing great but the other is full of tiny sprouts. I have no idea how that worked out. Conditions,. media, seed packs were all the same. It's curious.

The reason bloodworms are popular/recommended is that they are the larval stage of the Midge Fly—an insect. Insects are the natural diet for the plants.

Some people use other fish food like betta pellets, but I play it safe and avoid anything that might have shellfish.

Ok, but like, the entire plants are like 1 mm in size...their dew drops are hardly visible...wouldn't any food particle be too big for the plants at this stage?